Vehicles such as HEVs (Hybrid Electrical Vehicles) and EVs (Electrical Vehicles) include a battery (high-voltage battery) or & battery unit for driving a motor mounted thereon. These kinds of vehicles have a cooling structure for cooling the battery, and air-cooling type cooling structures have been widely adopted.
Fox example, JP-A-2004-331024 discloses a cooling structure for a battery that is placed under a seat in a vehicle interior. The cooling structure is operated under different states by switching the states such as a state where the battery is cooled with the air introduced from the vehicle interior (hereinafter, referred to as vehicle interior air as necessary), a state where the batten is cooled with the air discharged from an air conditioning system (hereinafter, referred to as air-conditioned air, as necessary), and a state where the battery is cooled with the air introduced from a trunk.
In addition, JP-A-2006-141153 describes a cooling method by introducing air, which is discharged from an air conditioning system (hereinafter, referred to as air-conditioned air, as necessary), into a battery unit for cooling the battery proactively in addition to the air that is discharged from the vehicle interior air.
In the cooling structure of the battery described in JP-A-2004-331024, connection to the battery side is made by branching off an air conditioning duct at an intermediate portion of the air conditioning duct that connects an air conditioning system with an air conditioning outlet port open toward the vehicle interior. Thus, it is necessary to provide a changeover valve at a branching portion in order to switch the flow channels, which causes an increase in production cost. In addition, according to the cooling structure of the battery described in JP-A-2004-331024, from the air conditioning outlet port that is originally for discharging air-conditioned air, the vehicle interior air to cool the battery is taken in, or the air after cooling the battery is discharged. This could bring about a strange or uncomfortable feeling to the car passengers.
In addition, in the battery unit described in JP-A-2006-141153, an introduction portion to introduce vehicle interior air and an introduction portion to introduce air-conditioned air have separate configurations, which could cause upsizing of the battery unit. In addition, because the introduction portion to introduce vehicle interior air and the introduction portion to introduce air-conditioned air are spaced apart from each other, a part of the battery is cooled with the vehicle interior air, and the rest of the battery is cooled with the air-conditioned sit or with mixed air of the vehicle interior air and the air-conditioned air, which could cause unevenness of temperature in the air supplied to the battery.